Submit a MARGINS Mini-Lesson

Use this form to submit a teaching activity to the MARGINS Mini-Lesson collection. To see a finished example of a mini-lesson, click here (opens in a new window).

If you need help submitting your mini-lesson, please contact John McDaris.

Be sure to hit the SUBMIT button before leaving this page or your information will be lost. We encourage you to compose your answers to the longer questions in a word processor and to cut and paste the resulting text into this form.

Mini-Lesson Title

The title should be evocative of the main point(s) of the activity. It needs to communicate the full context of the activity on its own as it will show up in places like search returns (e.g. Google) where people won't have any contextual clues. So it should convey the idea that this is a teaching activity, what the subject matter is and what the relevant pedagogical focus is. For example: Solar Radiation: Sample Socratic Questions



Author

Name and institution of author(s) of the activity and any other appropriate attribution information. If the page is based on materials originally created elsewhere that should be noted with attribution given to the original authors and links provided to the original materials.

For example: This page authored by Jon Smith, Big State University, based on an original activity by Jane Smith, Smallville College.



Email

Email addresses of the activity author(s) separated by commas. These will not be displayed in the activity page but are used for internal tracking.



Summary

This text should make it clear what the activity is. It should provide an overview of the things that students will do and the intended outcomes. The description should be concise and compelling: typically no more than 1-2 very brief paragraphs.

For Example

To prepare for this case study, students do background reading on landslides and rock avalanches and read the introductory portion of Hermanns and Strecker's 1999 article on rock avalanches in Argentina. In class, students receive data (assembled from figures in the article) on bedrock geology and physiography, as well as stereonets showing orientations of prominent joint sets, bedding, and foliations in the bedrock. Their task is to answer the question of why gigantic rock avalanches occur is some places but not others in this part of Argentina. The activity gives students practice in interpreting geologic maps, using stereonets, and peer teaching. Each student receives one of four possible data sets and must ultimately explain his/her analysis to others. The activity also connects structural geology to another geoscience discipline.



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Goals

What concepts and content should students learn from this activity? Are there higher-order thinking skills (e.g. critical thinking, data analysis, synthesis of ideas, model development) that are developed by this activity? Are there other skills (writing, oral presentation, field techniques, equipment operation, etc.) that are developed by the activity.



Context for Use

This text should help faculty understand the types of teaching situations for which this activity is appropriate. Important types of context include educational level, class size, institution type, etc. Is it lab, lecture, or field exercise, or a longer project? How much time is needed for the activity. Is there special equipment that is necessary? Are there skills or concepts that students should have already mastered before encountering this activity? How is this activity situated in the course? How easy (or hard) would it be to adapt the activity for use in other settings?



Activity Description and Teaching Materials

This section should include a narrative describing the mechanics of the activity and all the materials needed to implement the activity (or links and references to those materials).

  • If the material is available on another site please provide the full url.
  • If you have the materials in hand they can be uploaded using the fields below and they will be embedded in the final page so that they can be downloaded.
  • If they are published print materials please provide a complete bibliographic reference.
  • If the activity is fully documented at another site please provide the url along with a brief (one or two sentence) description of the other site.

For all materials include, in the box below, a brief description of each item covering what it is and what its role is in the activity.

If you upload files as part of your activity remember to consider their final use in deciding on appropriate formats. Materials that other faculty are likely to modify should be provided in easily editable formats (plain text, Word files), whereas materials that will be likely only used verbatim are most convenient in formats that are universally readable (PDF format is often a good choice).

Once this form has been submitted we can work with you to integrate the downloadable files into the text of this section.

Please be sure all materials you upload can be freely redistributed. For more information about copyright as it applies to materials you are sharing through this site please check our more detailed discussion of this issue.



If you have more than 5 files include the first 5 here and then get in touch with John McDaris at the SERC office (jmcdaris@carleton.edu) after completing this form.

Teaching Notes

This section should include notes and tips for instructors who might use the activity. Information such as common areas of confusion, things that need reinforcement, safety guidelines and other practical tips, and pointers for making the best use of the activity are appropriate. Note that this section should complement, rather than repeat, the more general guidance about the teaching method provided in the methods module of which this activity is a part.



Assessment

This section should describe how the author determines whether or not students (either individually or collectively) are achieving the learning goals outlined for the activity. Other relevant assessment strategies may also be described in this section.



Resources

This section should include references and links to online resources that discuss the specific activity or will support faculty and/or students using the activity. References related to the general teaching technique should not be included here, but should be recommended for inclusion in the associated module.

Web resources should include both the url and a brief description of the site (and why it is relevant). Print resource should include basic citation information as well as a brief description of the resource.



Short Description

The short description should be a distillation of the summary above. This description will be displayed in search returns. The optimal length for this description is on the order of 1-2 sentences.





After you submit this form, you will no longer be able to edit your information via this form. It will vetted by our staff (to weed out spam) and then made into a web page (via an automated process). Once this web page is available we will let you know the URL via email. If you wish you will then be able to update and edit the resulting page. More detail about this process will be included in the notification email and can be found here.